


smog, the countryside, and all of the corresponding corpses

by The_Florian_Triangle



Series: based off of the badlands (<3) [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved Extended Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Blink and you'll miss it but I wanted to tag, Canon-Typical Violence, Detective C. C. Tinsley, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, F/M, Film Noir, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Inspired by Real Events, It's VERY complicated, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mobster Ricky Goldsworth, Period Typical Attitudes, Ricky is the golden boy of the gang, Serial Killer Ricky Goldsworth, Set in late 1940s NYC, Slurs, Sort Of, Violence, not a member of the mafia though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Florian_Triangle/pseuds/The_Florian_Triangle
Summary: Tinsley loses a case, an important case, one of his first. Two bodies are on display on the pier, and it's not the mob. And Santa Maria is no place for anything holy. The date is May 10th, 1945, and it's the beginning of the end.
Relationships: (technically) - Relationship, Ricky Goldsworth/C. C. Tinsley, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Series: based off of the badlands (<3) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027183
Comments: 13
Kudos: 18





	1. silence.

There was a body on the Pier. It didn’t used to be like this. The sailors used to work hard, yeah, as hard as they did now, and they were always scared (Luciano had the unions) but they were never _silent._ The _docks_ were never silent. There was always some stupid jackass hollering to cry up his fish, or children running around, or newsboys, or even a crazy homeless guy begging for money to defeat the Krauts. It felt like everything was holding its breath. 

When Tinsley stepped out of the squad car, the only thing he heard was the sloshing of the sea and the gulls. Everyone was walking around, head down. Women gripped the wrists of their children or outright carried them. There was a small crowd around the lampposts at the end of the pier, and Tinsley was about to pull the voice on them when they parted, silently, for a grim-faced, red-haired man who was sagging out of his officer’s uniform. 

“Buckley,” Tinsley said, too loudly, and someone near him flinched. A car drove past. “I don’t work for the goddamned precinct.”

“It’s on your case,” Buckley muttered. “We found a wallet.” Tinsley perked up, and he softened his face. He respected Buckley well enough, he had a good heart, but he was a royal sucker. 

“No shit? Where’s it at?” Buckley pointed. 

Two men were stacked on top of one another, tied vertically to the lamppost, the cord around each of their necks so tight that it had severed all but what looked to be the spinal cord. Each one had their open wallet sewed neatly to the thigh of their pants and a white terry cloth sack over their heads. The man on the bottom had a slightly circular crust of blood staining the area around the mouth, which made him look surprised. It was almost horrifically funny. They had both been badly burned, everything but the pants hung in charred tatters _(taken off and put back on after the murder, Tinsley thought)_ , and each man held a sign, their arms in a pugilistic stance. 

**Back not**

**Scratched.**

Tinsley puffed a breath of disdain out of his mouth, sending his fluffy hair bouncing. He leaned up on his toes, looking at the wallet of the top man and gagging when a waft of charred flesh reached his nose. Tinsley looked at the other wallet and reached forward with a sudden swell of rage, tearing the leather from the cloth and double checking it. 

“What the fuck am I going to tell his wife, Buckley?” he hissed, and Buckley looked down. 

“I talked to Wallace. It’s not the fucking Commission.” Tinsley knew what the Buckley Wallace Back and Forth was, everyone who had even given a half glance at the buttons knew what the Buckley Wallace Back and Forth was. 

-Come on, Wallace. 

_-Whatcha mean?_

-Did your friend do this, Wallace? 

_-Aw, shit, man? Are you kidding? Excuse X Excuse Y Excuse Z and round it all off with There’s no way they did this, Buck. Not an ice cream’s chance in hell. It’s too sloppy._

Tinsley blinked, his mind running off a little. 

-Wallace. 

_-Whatcha mean?_

-Did your friend fucking do this, Wallace? 

_-Fuck, man… jesus fuck, man… I sure hope not._

“You’re sure?” he asked distantly, tugging at the deathcold grip on the sign and looking at the back of the thin wood. Men who did this, who put their enemies up for gibbeting, were cocky. They were aware. They had nothing to lose, and that wasn’t the mark of the mafia. This killer was hungry. This killer was new. 

On the back of the sign, in ink, half bled out by the rain: **Santa Maria**. 

Tinsley had been hired by a woman who was looking for her husband, believing that he’d been rubbed out or held hostage by the Family. And it was clear now, that he hadn’t been. But he had been found. Archibald K. Williams. Time of death: sometime around 2:00 am, May 10, 1945. My condolences, ma’am. Case closed. 

He still looked through every church, every basilica that had Maria in the name. He dug through Buckley’s files for Marias who had gone missing or been found dead in case this was a revenge killing. Eventually, he had nothing but a long shot. An old estate in Palisades, an hour and a half out if he drove, named Santa Maria. Buckley, still with the taste of silence on his tongue, handed Tinsley the keys without a sound of protest or a threat to keep her clean. 

* * *

10 Kings Lane was at the end of a long gravel road, sparsely paved and encroached on by thick forest that ended in a cobbled cul de sac lined with functioning gas lamps. There were cars all along it, fancy cars, and women in sleek dresses and men in tuxedos going up the stone stairs to the opening of a massive house, its walls painted deep red and its wrought iron trim a stark black. It looked like the night had cut into the house in many pretty designs, swirling over the balconies and the windows, making it a mosaic. Tinsley heard a record playing something swingy and fun, but a little fast, nearly manic in its gaiety. He drove the squad car past the gates, which yawned open for him, and got out, brushing down his coat and putting on his hat. He didn’t really have the energy to care that he was underdressed -- it wasn’t his business to be at a party right now. He needed something for this woman, something that would make her feel the tiniest bit better. A name, a face, an arrest, something to make her blood boil instead of thicken and coagulate. 

The door was open, but he rang the doorbell anyway, and a man with a very neat mustache and greying hair walked to the door. He held out his hands, and Tinsley stood there for a good minute before he realized what he was supposed to do -- hand his hat and coat over. 

“I won’t be staying,” he said firmly, but the man remained. 

“Leave off of him, Mr. Mayor,” someone said lightly, and the butler turned on his heel and marched back into the house. Tinsley leaned forward, feeling something in his spine carry along a razor wire as a much shorter young man stepped into the light. He was broad, with a strong jaw and once-slicked back black hair that had gone wild from dancing. For whatever reason, Tinsley didn’t want to look at his face, looking at his hand instead. It was extended for shaking. 

“Ricky Goldsworth,” came the name, warm and inviting, practically cooed. “What can I do for you, Officer?” Tinsley shook the hand firmly. He dared to look at a black vest in stiff fabric, cut to form, and white shirtsleeves. A black tie with gold threads winding through it like the wrought iron wove through the color of the house. 

And his face. His terrible face. Goldsworth was handsome, very much so, magnetic and dark (Mexican? Not quite) with almond-shaped eyes and a mouth that carved across his face in a wide, warm smile. Younger than Tinsley, but less than a decade so, shaven clean and unruly, his tie hanging around his neck and his sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm. Tinsley thought he was nothing but a dumb kid, a crust of money the only thing keeping him from blacking boots, right up until he made eye contact. Whatever warmth Ricky had attempted to bring to his overall demeanor, he failed to bring to his eyes. They were fish eyes, dull and dead, and Tinsley knew seconds after chancing a glance that not a beam in the world could make them reflect a speck of light; they were a dark, swallowing sort of eyes that spoke of nothing but hunger and possession. 

This was the part where he should have called in Buckley, called him in to surround the house, and personally put a bullet through the perfect golden forehead of Ricardo Goldsworth for killing Archibald K Williams and his buddy. 

He didn’t.

“I’m not an officer,” he murmured, taking off his coat and handing it to the butler, “I’m a private detective.” And all around him, he could see that the necks of the people at Santa Maria were waiting to be severed to the spine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If someone gives me the current street name of the cul de sac where Ricky's house was in Palisades (I did base it off of an actual location), I'll give them a lollipop and a sequel if I can dredge up enough material for it. Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you've got a minute or two, I love to hear what people have to say.


	2. it's so easy to break you, doll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tinsley begins to chip and crack. The pier is full of promise, fear, and most of all, sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that the Brooklyn accent has two different kinds of "r"s, and neither of them sound like the conventional English r? 
> 
> One of them, the open r, isn't even really an r. "pair" turns into "pe-ah".   
> The closed r is closer to a v sound.
> 
> I don't know. I'm a nerd about this kind of stuff. I can't see either of the boys as having a really thick Brooklyn accent, but the only Brooklyn accent I can hear in my head is incredibly thick, so I'm working my way towards something closer for them in my brain.

Tinsley spent 48 hours awake after he looked into the eyes of the master of Santa Maria. Whenever he dared to close his own, all he saw was those fucking soulless pits, those that turned the shiniest things to matte. He dreamed fitfully on hour 50 of hands running up his shirt, and the crooning of a murderer in his ear. He woke up rock hard and thoroughly ashamed of himself, refused himself of touch as some kind of penance, and drowned himself for another day in coffee with sugar and no cream. 

He still hadn’t told the wife of the dead man. It was wrong, but he couldn’t look straight at that case right now. The identity of the murderer was achingly clear, but he needed proof. So he started digging where he shouldn’t. Tinsley broke into the police station after Buckley refused him, which was laughably easy, and lifted cold case files that he believed could be tracked to Ricky. He then started to take other things. Evidence analyses of live cases. Autopsy reports. 

Drugs. 

It wasn’t so hard to equivocate things like this. He needed to sleep without dreaming. He needed to wake without the image of those dead eyes dancing behind his retinas. He was being efficient where the police weren’t, and while stolen evidence might jeopardize a case in court, the judges were so corrupt that in the end it wouldn’t really matter. He needed glaring evidence for the woman, and he needed her to open her book for a bribe. His apartment, already something similar to a fraternity, quickly grew more and more disastrous still. Papers littered every surface, next to dirty dishes, syringes, and empty bottles. The phone lay in pieces where he had thrown it. He had stopped making his bed the way he had learned in the navy, tuck and fold, instead leaving it a rumpled mess every morning. Who gave a shit? He was doing his job. 

The Goldsworth crime family, Tinsley found, had originated in Los Angeles around 1900, and had moved to NYC when Ricky had probably been about 5 after something severe and nasty. A mass suicide in some reports and a massacre in others, it was invariably bloody. Ricky was in his 20s, well-to-do, and a complete fucking psychopath. The rest was speculation, but Tinsley could shakily trace his new friend to a surge of crime that had happened around four years ago, during the war, when he had been overseas. Starting in Manhattan and making its way down to Brooklyn, a rash of irrationally violent false suicides, mass shootings, broad daylight snuffings, and robberies from grand theft auto to jewelry to an entire shipment simply removed from the Brooklyn shipyard had been a new reason for people to lock their doors. The crimes had none of the mark of the mob, were incredibly self-assured and confident, grew even more drastic and violent as time went on, and despite a metric ton of evidence left behind, it all came up dead or useless. 

Something, a memory, itched at the back of his brain. It was an old memory, layered over with far more interesting situations, and he’d quite left it off as something useless. He shook his head at it and went back to squeezing his already cracking mind for more relevant things. 

_ Dark walls, bared golden skin, and a knifeish smile.  _

“Not now,” he muttered aloud. “Give me time. Not now.” 

_ Pointed fingers and an aloof victim. Broad shoulders and strong arms.  _

Tinsley went for more drugs that night. 

A week after he had looked into the eyes of the master of Santa Maria, the Five Families fully lost their faltering control of the Waterfront. Tinsley, locked up in his apartment like a Goldsworth-obsessed hermit, wouldn’t have known about it if someone hadn’t broken in and left the newspaper on his kitchen counter, open to the scene of bullet-riddled bodies and a loud headline. His door was left swinging open, the lock simply broken off, and the newspaper, marked by a beautiful lacquer paperweight that Tinsley had never owned in his life, came with a note by the chosen article. 

**Don’t think I haven’t been looking after you too.**

What the fuck that meant was lost on Tinsley’s drug, sleep deprivation, and coffee addled brain, but it made his blood run cold. He started keeping his curtains closed, running up his electrical, making Buckley bring him his groceries by begging flu. The locksmith installed two sets of locks on his door. He started upping what went into his now daily hits of stolen drugs, went out less, kept away from the Waterfront. 

Ricky Goldsworth was strangling the mob at their favorite profit source, and he was looking after Tinsley. His past, perhaps, or watching him through his windows. He must know everything by now. Down the drain went the detective, flailing for some kind of grasp on reality. 

_ Tinsley walked through a heavy set of doors, his host cheerfully throwing them open for him. The room was tall, paneled, and all in white and gold, with a marble floor. Lights hung in clusters from the ceiling, dimly illuminating the shine on the dresses of the women and the cufflinks of the men. In the corner, a record was playing, and some of the people danced, quietly, as to not drown it out. Everyone breathed thin air.  _

_ “Everyone! I’d like you to meet my friend...” Tinsley wanted to vomit as those eyes turned on him.  _

_ “C. C.,” he muttered, “Tinsley.” Giving his real name was a plum stupid decision, but he felt weighed down by something, choked by miasma and unease. He should lie to this man, but it felt impossible.  _

_ “Mr. Tinsley!” The group of beautiful mannequins raised their flutes of champagne to him and the record started up again. Ricky fluttered around the room like a manic-depressive hummingbird, making “introductions”. Tinsley barely bothered remembering the names. The comforting hand on his forearm might as well have been around his throat. He awkwardly danced one dance, gratefully accepted a drink, and had nearly finished swallowing it down when a young woman walked up to the bar, her dark curls around her cheeks. Tinsley turned his head to the side. He didn’t like the way she looked at him.  _

_ “I believe we were introduced,” she said delicately, and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember. He had been preoccupied with once-neat hair that had clearly had fingers in it, and golden skin, and gaping fish eyes.  _

_ “Ah,” he muttered into his empty glass, wishing it full. She laughed, a light peal, and touched his arm where that hand had gripped him before.  _

_ “Francesca,” she said gently. Tinsley didn’t look into her face. “I’m sorry.” _

_ “For what? I got into a party free. They even have caviar. Never been able to say with experience that it sucks before.” It sounded forced, even to him. Francesca shook her head, her hair bouncing.  _

_ “He always gets what he wants.” She patted him on the shoulder. It was meant to be comforting. “I’m sorry.” Then, louder, “You said you were a private detective, Mr. Tinsley?” The faces of the mannequins snapped closed, and Ricky let Tinsley out for exercise with a light laugh and a wave and a promise to come back soon.  _

* * *

Tinsley, against all better judgement, went to the Waterfront seven nights after he got the note. Was he intending a confrontation? Was he going to be strung up and burned for sport? Not even he was sure. The air still had the bite of an early summer night by the ocean, and the wind whipped at his coat, nearly pulling his tall frame back a few inches for every step he took. He struggled against it a little, ducking his head until he was safely within the tall stacks of shipping crates, the wind whistling over the tops of the metal in a shrill sort of scream. Not a hundred yards away lay the place where the bodies had been found, the worn crime scene tape snapping in the wind. He was practically whistling on his way into the gates of Hell itself. The gargantuan and desolate towers of imported goods passed him by. 

Suddenly, someone yanked on his jacket with a force that spun him around, and before he could get a good look at his assailant, he was practically lifted and carried into an empty shipping container, struggling in fear and confusion. His foot caught on a metal slat, and he would have fallen if the hands on his jacket hadn’t dragged him up and slammed him against the corrugated metal wall. The air left him and his legs nearly gave out, and he clung to the shoulders of the man attacking him for dear life, gasping harshly and clawing for air. The warmth of the other body pulled back, and Tinsley dropped to his hands and knees, far too much of his weight falling onto the metal. Three steps,  _ thunk thunk thunk _ , and then the sounds of brisk walking on the slats of the pier. Tinsley was left alone, the faint light of the far away street lamp filtering into the open, empty container. His back and knees hurt, and he was still trying to get his breath back. It felt like his lungs were being ripped open, and he sunk down until his cheek was pressed against rust, his entire body shuddering with the effort of drawing air.

His hands were shaking, he realized dimly, and he tucked one into the other, rubbing them as if that would fix him. He dragged himself out of the container, wheezing and coughing, and leaned against the imposing side of it, clearly painted bright red even in the low light. Tinsley pulled his hat off of his head, tilting his head back and looking out at the lamppost and the tape. His chest hurt. His whole body hurt. 

He ate at the diner near his apartment as his watch told him 1 a.m., his chest occasionally twinging as if to remind him of his idiotic choice, and limped home, throwing his hat onto the nearby chair and shrugging off his coat. It landed not with a soft shuffle of fabric, but a dull thud. 

Tinsley looked over his shoulder at it, an inky dread settling in his chest. He reached for the crumpled pile of fabric, feeling around in it for the object. It was in his pocket, a small corked bottle full of dark brown liquid rolled up in an envelope. His hands shook as he reached for the letter opener on his desk. There were three items in the envelope: paper bills amounting to two hundred dollars, a photograph of Tinsley entering his apartment (he swallowed heavily), and one thick card of expensive-looking cream colored paper, with a neat swirl of ink in the same hand as the note before. 

**Wallace. All my love, RG.**

A sob ripped itself from his throat, something that he would deny until the end of his life, and he curled up, back against the desk, hand sliding through his already mussed hair. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep your eye on the red shipping box. Continue speculating, and please comment! 
> 
> Today's guessing game: What is the liquid? (Hint: indigo, beautiful, tall)


	3. maybe make it easy on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A decision is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me so far, and thank you to Sam.

The next morning, Tinsley sat at his breakfast table in the morning light, feet propped up on the cheap wood. His back and chest hurt like hell, and he stared at the bottle, premeditating. There was no way to equivocate this, what he had been handed, and if he had the slightest sense he’d pour the bottle down his sink and go tell the woman and be done with it. He sighed deeply, poured himself another bourbon, and sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and running his thumb over the picture in his pocket. 

The threat was clear and cliche --  _ we know where you live  _ \-- and it wasn’t like he was going to be safer if he moved. He looked over at his telephone and picked it up, his finger shaking as he dialed out a number and told the operator what he wanted. 

Everything was starting to come together, but the story still had so many holes that it was nothing but a flat plot, a simple one-and-done when Tinsley was  _ positive  _ that there was a larger thing at stake here. 

“Mrs. Williams? I have news on your husband.” This was always the uncomfortable part, the part where someone lost something, but Tinsley felt like he had been bleeding identity since he had stepped out of that squad car at 10 Kings Lane, so maybe hearing someone else experience loss for a change wouldn’t hurt him too badly. When he told her, she screamed, and Tinsley yanked the phone away from his ear as a loud crack and a hypocritically cheerful dinging sound suggested that she had dropped the receiver. He leaned over his propped up feet and grabbed the bottle that was undoubtedly poison, running his thumb over the cork and turning it over in his hand. 

“Ma’am,” he said gently when he heard sniffling again, “I’m gonna find out who did this.” His thumb ran over the cork again. “Have you had any unusual calls from anyone lately?” 

“The police department,” she said thickly. “They made an offer to find Archie too.” Tinsley nodded, he’d expected as much. 

“Was it Sergeant Wallace?” A long silence, and his fingers tightened until his knuckles were white on the phone. 

“How did you know?” He hung up. Another puzzle piece slid into place, and his head throbbed as he pondered it. 

_ It was a tactic worthy of Wallace’s bone-headedness. Archibald Williams had most likely been doing grunt work for the mafia, most likely something involving shipping, since he’d been strung up by Ricky at the pier. He’d probably owed them some kind of money and was working to pay off the debt instead of handing them cash since his wife was smart. She’d have noticed if it was missing. _ Tinsley turned the bottle in his hand, staring at the dark, thick liquid sloshing back and forth. 

So now Wallace had been tasked with getting the rest of Archie’s debt. And Ricky had known this. 

_ Ricky had known this.  _

But why Tinsley? Why did Ricky even want Wallace gone? Tinsley heaved a deep sigh, closing his eyes as his mind raced. The glass slid between his fingers, soothing and cool. And then his feet hit the road in front of Santa Maria, and Ricky smiled at him, and his eyes snapped open again before he got in too deep. 

Who was he kidding? He was already underwater with this.

Ricky had killed at least two men related to the Family. And now he was enlisting Tinsley to kill a third. He was taking over their territory at a rapid pace. There was a strategy here, one that Tinsley wasn’t seeing yet. 

Why would he choose to pick the best of two evils if the best was unforgivable? Was there no third option? No “so sorry, but I’m not too inclined to murder a man” that would be acceptable to the dead-eyed head of the house at the Palisades? He poured himself another drink. 

Arms slid around his torso, warm and smooth and firm, and as the burn of the alcohol eased in his throat, his body sagged against the illusion. 

He would do it if only to stay alive. He would do it because the mafia was his enemy, and that made Wallace his enemy too. He would do it because Wallace was attempting to extort his client. Tinsley looked at the bottle, and his eyes hurt, and his back was bruising from last night, and as lips that didn’t exist pressed themselves to the back of his neck, making the hair there stand up, he made his decision. 

Murder, in this case, was just acceptable enough. 

* * *

He hopped off of the subway just outside of the precinct with the bottle weighing on him like a bad dream. Everything seemed fluid, unreal. Time had decided to take a sick day, and so he was moving too slowly and too quickly at once. He was going to vomit -- did he look suspicious at all? Buckley clapped him on the shoulder and talked him up about his own bad run with the flu when he was fourteen, and Tinsley nodded dully and thanked him for getting the groceries in a voice that sounded mechanical even to himself. He rubbed his hand over his eyes, moving through molasses to Wallace’s desk, and then time sped up. 

_ How are you? Oh hi, I’m good how are you? Yeah, I’m recovering from this nasty bug and all. Aw man, fuck outta here with that, you look great. _ Tinsley gulped and sat down, smiling shakily and running his thumb over the cork. He leaned in, trying to look conspiratory. 

“Meet me out back by the alley in five, yeah?” Wallace looked at him, eyes widening, and nodded. He grinned, clapping Tinsley on the shoulder. 

“I knew you was a good kid,” he muttered back. “See you then.” Tinsley stood up, shaking his hand and laughing with Buckley about a case with a missing cat on his way out, and confirming with Wallace that his “friend” was in no way involved with Mrs. Peaches. 

He had bought an identical bottle to the one in his pocket but filled with whiskey instead of whatever it was that was in Ricky’s. His heart was slamming in his chest as he leaned against the dirty brick, his stomach squeezing painfully as Wallace walked out right on time. 

“The boss said she’s gonna pay up,” Tinsley said lightly, pulling out Ricky’s bottle and tossing it to Wallace. “He says thanks.” Wallace ran his thumb over the cork, and Tinsley brushed away a sick kind of jealousy. 

“Where’s this from?” Wallace looked him over, grinning. “I knew it. I had you pegged from the first second you walked up.” Tinsley shot him back a smug smile. 

“It’s real fancy. Imported straight out of Europe.” He held up his bottle. “To a job well done.” Wallace eagerly uncorked his, clinking it against Tinsley’s. They both knocked it back, and each grimaced for a different reason. 

“So,” the crooked cop said, leaning against the wall next to Tinsley, “has he said anything about what I should tell her about her old man?” Tinsley shoved his hands in his pockets, tilting his hat down. 

“Call her in three days with your condolences. Say you identified him as the guy on the pier.” Wallace blanched a little. 

“Was he?” Tinsley nodded, tossing his bottle out on the cement of the alley, where it cracked and shattered into many pieces of brown glass. The world did not exist outside of this alleyway. He looked at Wallace’s hand, the empty vessel swinging between his fingers like a cigarette. He suddenly felt too hot and tugged at his tie.

“Don’t worry about it.” He kicked off the wall, tipping his hat to Wallace and vanishing into the crowd. He felt like everything behind his eyes was fading away. 

* * *

_ Santa Maria was chewing. She seemed to be considering the food in her mouth, gangly and stubble-y with a pair of evil lungs and a new infatuation. She was thinking about his palate, the way he wanted to lean in, the way his bones and his morals cracked under the slightest force of pressure from her son.  _

_ Ah, her son. Her shining boy, full to the brim with nothing and as hungry as she was. Santa Maria chewed the new man for her son, and thought about him, and as Tinsley walked up those steps again in the gloom of twilight, lacking a bottle, she yawned open.  _

* * *

Tinsley rang the doorbell, tearing thin pieces of flesh off of the inside of his lip with his teeth and chewing them miserably. The Mayor opened it and held out his hands. The detective didn’t wait before shrugging off his hat and coat this time. 

“Where is that you’re wanting to go, sir?” Tinsley looked at the butler for a long minute, taking stock of him. He had the classic prim and flat affect of any butler that you’d see in a picture show, and Tinsley wanted to reach out and prod him for a second, to see if he’d crumple like paper. 

“Mr. Goldsworth,” he mumbled. “Take me to see him, please.” The Mayor nodded, opening the next door for him and clearing his throat as he started to lead Tinsley through a twist of hallways lined in dark red wallpaper and warm electric lights that buzzed faintly as they passed. 

The Mayor took him up a flight of dark stairs, eventually coming to a door with a gold knocker. He knocked once. Silence. 

“Mr. Tinsley, sir.” And Tinsley was ushered into the room and the door was closed behind him with a soft click. The walls were papered with dark red roses, and his shoes clicked on the hardwood floor. The curtains were open, and the light of the sunset blazed into the room in fiery gold and orange, making everything unbearable. A small electric chandelier with crystals dangled above them, the lights turned off. It was completely silent when he stopped walking. 

As soon as Tinsley saw him, the world dissolved just as it had done in the alley with Wallace, this time dropping away around everything but himself and Ricky Goldsworth. Ricky looked up, lifting his magnifying glass and smiling widely at Tinsley, who stood transfixed. The sun was behind the murderer, and he sat, an ominous shadow in front of the detective, wreathed in flames and beautifully hellish. Tinsley had so many things to ask, all of them vital to his well-being, and surely none of them would be answered, but he tried for one he figured might be. 

“What was in it?” Ricky’s smile widened further, his eyes crinkling at the edges, and he stood up, gesturing for Tinsley to pull up a chair with one hand. Tinsley did so, following the direction of his hand with his eyes until the world gained a little more of his attention, and found a straight-backed leather chair in the corner of the room. He swallowed, walking over and dragging the chair across the floor somewhat awkwardly as he felt Ricky’s eyes stripping him down to his skeleton. Eventually, he reached the desk with it and sat down. 

“Larkspur.” Ricky leaned over his papers, grinning widely. “A concentrated infusion of Larkspur.” Tinsley wanted to lean forward and lean back at the same time and settled for staying where he was. 

“He won’t…”

“He’ll be dead by morning.” The word “dead” snapped out of Ricky’s mouth like flagellation, and Tinsley flinched. Ricky watched him, and softened, his tone turned soothing and honeyed. “I’d much rather we talked about you.” Tinsley’s heart was pounding his bruised ribs again all of a sudden, and he felt like he was going to pass out. Ricky smiled at him, equal parts pity and hunger. “What say you to makin’ a little arrangement with me?” 

Santa Maria swallowed. 

  
  



	4. ricky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of extra writing that I did for Ricky, set in 1930.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god y'all I write so much for these two that it's not even ok. I felt like I should probably post at least one of my little side things (it all happens in the same universe) just for shits and giggles and content. Let me know if it's annoying -- I watch anime, I know how it feels.

Ricky had gotten many men hurt before, but not like this. All he had done was steal the guy’s wallet, it wasn’t the end of the world or nothin’. Plenty of folks still had a little dough, even if the market’d gone to shit, whatever that meant, and while his hobby was considerably less fun these days, and his coffee can of spendings dwindling a little, stealing even empty wallets was fun. Later, Ricky would talk with Worston, their butler, about dignity and why men still carried around worthless old leather, but right now he was running. The guy that he’d stolen from was screaming bloody murder behind him as Mama’s boys probably ripped his balls off, and Ricky was grinning despite the gash on his face until he heard a crack that sent a flock of pigeons rocketing up into the sky from the roofs of the old apartments that he was running between. 

He stopped, the elasticity of a young boy making the movement more fluid than anything, and walked back to the alley to see Mama’s boys grab a dark-coated man by his dangling arms and ease him down behind the rusting trash cans and rotting pallets. Ricky stared at his feet. They didn’t move. Maybe he was unconscious? He skip-hopped up to Mama’s boys, but one of the younger ones, a brawny 17-year old, grabbed him by the arm, his fingers gentle. 

“Don’t look, kid,” he muttered. Ricky glared at him and yanked his arm away, flipping him a rude gesture and squatting down next to the man. 

“How’d you like me now, you fuckin geezer. Huh?” He prodded the guy’s shoulder, and his body slumped down a little. Ricky, triumphant, grabbed the guy’s shoulders and shook him. “Wake up, you old bastard! See if you nick my face again-” He had gone up on his toes while squatting, and when the man fell forward, it threw Ricky off balance. He yelped as he fell back, the body bending in two until its head was on his knee and it was staring up at him with one good eye, the other completely pulverized and dripping gore. Ricky didn’t scream or cry. He simply froze, the blood draining from his face a little as bits of the guy’s brain, probably, dripped onto his thigh. He toed the body back to sitting with one shaking foot, and looking over at the nearby trash can, grabbed a container of completely unsaveable milk and poured it onto the corpse. 

In his stomach, something ugly bloomed. 

“Fucking geezus,” he mumbled, grabbing his already dirty handkerchief and wiping down his pants leg. The boy who had tried to stop him looked at him with pity, shucking off his jacket and offering it to Ricky, who snarled back at him with venom and stalked past it. “I’m walking home,” he said quietly. And then, as an afterthought, “Thanks.” 

* * *

As Ricky walked down the long wooded drive to the newly renamed Santa Maria, he felt like the world had become fragile -- like if he extended his arms out to his fingertips, the woods would bend and make space for them, warping like they were through a magnifying glass. He stifled tears that he didn’t understand and picked up his heels. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all y'all, and I hope you enjoyed it! Please shoot me some feedback in the comments if you liked it or want to yell at me.


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